The underlying cause isn’t a secret. Rising government debts, and
expectations of an economic recovery,
are pushing up long-term interest rates on government debt. The yield on
the 10-Year Treasury, which was barely 2% near the end of last year,
surged to 3.67% late last week. Rising treasuries, drive up rates on
all other long term loans.

This surge in mortgage rates is likely to bring pain throughout the
mortgage market. It makes it difficult to refinance an existing home
loan, and by raising the costs of ownership of newly sold homes will
make it tougher on both buyers and sellers of existing properties.

If rates are 11 percent higher, then the cost of buying that house just
got 11 percent more painful. Marginal sales become harder to make and
you’ll see more downward pressure on housing prices and sales volume
throughout the market.

Unfortunately, if you were slogging through a refi when rates jumped,
you are probably stuck with a new higher price. Gone are the days when
lenders would lock in rates at the beginning of the loan process. In
todays more regulated market, rates aren’t locked until near the end of
the process. Until your home appraisal is in, and your income proven,
you are at the mercy of changing rates. With the new, more closely
managed process adding weeks to a loan origination, more borrowers are
at greater risk of finding the loan they started working towards is not
the loan that eventually gets written. Rates today are still pretty reasonable by historic standards, but
there isn’t much certainty in today’s home loan market.

In the borader scope of the economy, the Fed’s intervention in the
markets might solve short term credit access and liquidity problems,
but are likely creating new long term structural problems. “When you
print new money to buy up treasury bonds you are just trading one
Federal IOU for another” said Howard Witkin, president of BestRate.Net.
Ultimately everything rests on the confidence in the underlying strength
and credit worthiness of Washington. As the fed tries to replace
trillions in treasuries and mortgage backed bonds with greenbacks, it
risks transfering the skepticism of those into skepticism of the dollar
itself. “The mint is going to have to run 24/7 to print enough money
to cover the promises being made daily by the White House and the Fed.”

Some borrowers are now looking instead at adjustable rate mortgages, or ARMs.
While the teaser rate might look good, in the end you are taking on
all of the lenders inflation risks onto yourself. In years to come
those risks look to be very substantial, Rising adjustable rates will put
new borrowers under water. That’s a story we’ve already heard. And it
wasn’t a pretty one.

The program includes annual payments to the lenders of up to 1000 for approving the modification and additional bonuses if the homeowners are still in their home five years from now. Investors need not apply. As long as your mortgage is owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac they will even reduce your principal to get you into the program.

Under this program, interest rates can go as low as 2% to get the payments down to an affordable 2% of the family income.

Here’s the Treasury department summary of the program:

Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan

Executive Summary

Read the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan Fact Sheet HERE
Read Support Under the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan: Three Cases HERE

The deep contraction in the economy and in the housing market has created devastating consequences for homeowners and communities throughout the country.

* Millions of responsible families who make their monthly payments and fulfill their obligations have seen their property values fall, and are now unable to refinance at lower mortgage rates.

* Millions of workers have lost their jobs or had their hours cut back, are now struggling to stay current on their mortgage payments – with nearly 6 million households facing possible foreclosure.

* Neighborhoods are struggling, as each foreclosed home reduces nearby property values by as much as 9 percent.

1.
Refinancing for Up to 4 to 5 Million Responsible Homeowners to Make Their Mortgages More Affordable

2.
A $75 Billion Homeowner Stability Initiative to Reach Up to 3 to 4 Million At-Risk Homeowners

3.
Supporting Low Mortgage Rates By Strengthening Confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

The Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan is part of the President’s broad, comprehensive strategy to get the economy back on track. The plan will help up to 7 to 9 million families restructure or refinance their mortgages to avoid foreclosure. In doing so, the plan not only helps responsible homeowners on the verge of defaulting, but prevents neighborhoods and communities from being pulled over the edge too, as defaults and foreclosures contribute to falling home values, failing local businesses, and lost jobs. The key components of the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan are:

1. Affordability: Provide Access to Low-Cost Refinancing for Responsible Homeowners Suffering From Falling Home Prices

· Enabling Up to 4 to 5 Million Responsible Homeowners to Refinance: Mortgage rates are currently at historically low levels, providing homeowners with the opportunity to reduce their monthly payments by refinancing. But under current rules, most families who owe more than 80 percent of the value of their homes have a difficult time refinancing. Yet millions of responsible homeowners who put money down and made their mortgage payments on time have – through no fault of their own – seen the value of their homes drop low enough to make them unable to access these lower rates. As a result, the Obama Administration is announcing a new program that will help as many as 4 to 5 million responsible homeowners who took out conforming loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to refinance through those two institutions.

· Reducing Monthly Payments: For many families, a low-cost refinancing could reduce mortgage payments by thousands of dollars per year:

o Consider a family that took out a 30-year fixed rate mortgage of $207,000 with an interest rate of 6.50% on a house worth $260,000 at the time. Today, that family has about $200,000 remaining on their mortgage, but the value of that home has fallen 15 percent to $221,000 – making them ineligible for today’s low interest rates that now generally require the borrower to have 20 percent home equity. Under this refinancing plan, that family could refinance to a rate near 5.16% – reducing their annual payments by over $2,300.

2. Stability: Create A $75 Billion Homeowner Stability Initiative to Reach Up to 3 to 4 Million At-Risk Homeowners

* Helping Hard-Pressed Homeowners Stay in their Homes: This initiative is intended to reach millions of responsible homeowners who are struggling to afford their mortgage payments because of the current recession, yet cannot sell their homes because prices have fallen so significantly. Millions of hard-working families have seen their mortgage payments rise to 40 or even 50 percent of their monthly income – particularly those who received subprime and exotic loans with exploding terms and hidden fees. The Homeowner Stability Initiative helps those who commit to make reasonable monthly mortgage payments to stay in their homes – providing families with security and neighborhoods with stability.

* No Aid for Speculators: This initiative will go solely to helping homeowners who commit to make payments to stay in their home – it will not aid speculators or house flippers.

* Protecting Neighborhoods: This plan will also help to stabilize home prices for all homeowners in a neighborhood. When a home goes into foreclosure, the entire neighborhood is hurt. The average homeowner could see his or her home value stabilized against declines in price by as much as $6,000 relative to what it would otherwise be absent the Homeowner Stability Initiative.

* Providing Support for Responsible Homeowners: Because loan modifications are more likely to succeed if they are made before a borrower misses a payment, the plan will include households at risk of imminent default despite being current on their mortgage payments.

* Providing Loan Modifications to Bring Monthly Payments to Sustainable Levels: The Homeowner Stability Initiative has a simple goal: reduce the amount homeowners owe per month to sustainable levels. Using money allocated under the Financial Stability Plan and the full strength of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, this program has several key components:

+ A Shared Effort to Reduce Monthly Payments: For a sample household with payments adding up to 43 percent of his monthly income, the lender would first be responsible for bringing down interest rates so that the borrower’s monthly mortgage payment is no more than 38 percent of his or her income. Next, the initiative would match further reductions in interest payments dollar-for-dollar with the lender to bring that ratio down to 31 percent. If that borrower had a $220,000 mortgage, that could mean a reduction in monthly payments by over $400. That lower interest rate must be kept in place for five years, after which it could gradually be stepped up to the conforming loan rate in place at the time of the modification. Lenders will also be able to bring down monthly payments by reducing the principal owed on the mortgage, with Treasury sharing in the costs.

+ “Pay for Success” Incentives to Servicers: Servicers will receive an up-front fee of $1,000 for each eligible modification meeting guidelines established under this initiative. They will also receive “pay for success” fees – awarded monthly as long as the borrower stays current on the loan – of up to $1,000 each year for three years.

+ Incentives to Help Borrowers Stay Current: To provide an extra incentive for borrowers to keep paying on time, the initiative will provide a monthly balance reduction payment that goes straight towards reducing the principal balance of the mortgage loan. As long as a borrower stays current on his or her loan, he or she can get up to $1,000 each year for five years.

+ Reaching Borrowers Early: To keep lenders focused on reaching borrowers who are trying their best to stay current on their mortgages, an incentive payment of $500 will be paid to servicers, and an incentive payment of $1,500 will be paid to mortgage holders, if they modify at-risk loans before the borrower falls behind.

+ Home Price Decline Reserve Payments: To encourage lenders to modify more mortgages and enable more families to keep their homes, the Administration — together with the FDIC — has developed an innovative partial guarantee initiative. The insurance fund – to be created by the Treasury Department at a size of up to $10 billion – will be designed to discourage lenders from opting to foreclose on mortgages that could be viable now out of fear that home prices will fall even further later on. Holders of mortgages modified under the program would be provided with an additional insurance payment on each modified loan, linked to declines in the home price index.

* Institute Clear and Consistent Guidelines for Loan Modifications: Treasury will develop uniform guidance for loan modifications across the mortgage industry, working closely with the bank agencies and building on the FDIC’s pioneering work. The Guidelines will be used for the Administration’s new foreclosure prevention plan. Moreover, all financial institutions receiving Financial Stability Plan financial assistance going forward will be required to implement loan modification plans consistent with Treasury Guidance. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will use these guidelines for loans that they own or guarantee, and the Administration will work with regulators and other federal and state agencies to implement these guidelines across the entire mortgage market. The agencies will seek to apply these guidelines when permissible and appropriate to all loans owned or guaranteed by the federal government, including those owned or guaranteed by Ginnie Mae, the Federal Housing Administration, Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, Veterans’ Affairs and the Department of Agriculture.

* Other Comprehensive Measures to Reduce Foreclosure and Strengthen Communities

o

Require Strong Oversight, Reporting and Quarterly Meetings with Treasury, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve and HUD to Monitor Performance

o

Allow Judicial Modifications of Home Mortgages During Bankruptcy for Borrowers Who Have Run Out of Options

o

Provide $1.5 Billion in Relocation and Other Forms of Assistance to Renters Displaced by Foreclosure and $2 Billion in Neighborhood Stabilization Funds

o

Improve the Flexibility of Hope for Homeowners and Other FHA Programs to Modify and Refinance At-Risk Borrowers

3. Supporting Low Mortgage Rates By Strengthening Confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

* Ensuring Strength and Security of the Mortgage Market: Today, using funds already authorized in 2008 by Congress for this purpose, the Treasury Department is increasing its funding commitment to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure the strength and security of the mortgage market and to help maintain mortgage affordability.

o Provide Forward-Looking Confidence: The increased funding will enable Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to carry out ambitious efforts to ensure mortgage affordability for responsible homeowners, and provide forward-looking confidence in the mortgage market.

o Treasury is increasing its Preferred Stock Purchase Agreements to $200 billion each from their original level of $100 billion each.

* Promoting Stability and Liquidity: In addition, the Treasury Department will continue to purchase Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities to promote stability and liquidity in the marketplace.
* Increasing The Size of Mortgage Portfolios: To ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can continue to provide assistance in addressing problems in the housing market, Treasury will also be increasing the size of the GSEs’ retained mortgage portfolios allowed under the agreements – by $50 billion to $900 billion – along with corresponding increases in the allowable debt outstanding.
* Support State Housing Finance Agencies: The Administration will work with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to support state housing finance agencies in serving homebuyers.
* No EESA or Financial Stability Plan Money: The $200 billion in funding commitments are being made under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act and do not use any money from the Financial Stability Plan or Emergency Economic Stabilization Act/TARP.

August 14, 2008
MORTGAGEE LETTER 2008-21

TO: ALL APPROVED MORTGAGEES

ATTENTION: Single Family Servicing Managers

SUBJECT: FHA Loss Mitigation Program Updates

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is pleased to announce several changes to its Loss Mitigation Program that will strengthen both the Loan Modification and Partial Claim Initiatives.

While these changes are designed to address borrowers who are facing serious defaults, most delinquencies can and should be resolved through early intervention. Mortgagees are reminded of the critical importance of early and constructive contact with delinquent borrowers and the requirement to notify borrowers of the availability of default counseling by HUD-approved counseling agencies.

Loss Mitigation Program Changes

This Mortgagee Letter announces three changes to the existing Loss Mitigation program designed to give mortgagees additional latitude to help borrowers cure defaults and retain homeownership. The changes noted below are effective immediately.

First, with respect to Loan Modifications, mortgagees may use the Treasury 10-year constant maturity as a basis for establishing the maximum interest rate for loan modifications. The maximum interest allowable should be calculated as 200 basis points above the monthly average yield on United States Treasury Securities, adjusted to a constant maturity of 10 years. Mortgagees shall refer to the rate that is in effect as of the date of execution of the loan modification. For information on the 10-year monthly constant maturities, please refer to the statistical release H.15, which is available on the following web site: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/data.htm

Next, where loss mitigation is being attempted after foreclosure has been initiated, mortgage servicers and mortgagors have advised that foreclosure related costs and legal fees are often impediments to successful loss mitigation. Many mortgagors who are able to resume making monthly mortgage payments frequently do not have sufficient funds to reimburse the mortgagee the legal fees and foreclosure costs incurred prior to qualifying for loss mitigation and therefore are denied participation.

Effective with this Mortgagee Letter, the Department will begin allowing legal fees and foreclosure costs related to a canceled foreclosure action to be incorporated into either the Loan Modification or the Partial Claim subject to the following requirements. This guidance expands and supersedes, in relevant part, the guidance provided in Loan Modifications section F (page 21) and Partial Claims section F (page 26) of Mortgagee Letter 00-05.

For Loan Modifications, legal fees and related foreclosure costs may now be capitalized into the modified principal balance. For Partial Claims (PC), mortgagees may now include legal fees and foreclosure costs related to a canceled foreclosure in the Partial Claim.

Mortgagees are reminded that all such foreclosure costs must reflect work actually completed to the date of the foreclosure cancellation and the attorney fees should not be in excess of the fee schedule that HUD has identified as customary and reasonable for FHA claim reimbursement. Late fees should not be capitalized in a Modification or included in a Partial Claim. As the goal in providing the mortgagor either a Loan Modification or a Partial Claim is to bring the delinquent mortgage current and give the mortgagor a new start, the mortgagee should waive all accrued late fees.

Please refer to Mortgagee Letter 2005-30 (or any subsequent guidance issued by FHA on reasonable and customary foreclosure costs) for the fee schedule for legal fees that HUD has identified as customary and reasonable for FHA claim reimbursement. Lenders should perform a retroactive escrow analysis at the time of the loan modification to ensure that the delinquent payments being capitalized reflect the actual escrow requirements required for those months capitalized.

Finally, in response to the industry’s request to provide adequate time for the mortgagee to complete all required actions related to a loan modification, the Department provides the following clarification. When establishing a loan modification, it is acceptable for mortgagees to include all payments due including an additional month in the loan modification.

Consider the following example. The mortgagor is due for the January 2008 and all subsequent payments. The mortgagee completes its loss mitigation evaluation on June 27, 2008. To allow adequate time to complete the loan modification, obtain all required signatures and provide adequate notice to the mortgagor of the new payment, the mortgagee may include the payments due for July 2008 and August 2008 in the loan modification. The mortgagor will begin remitting payments due under the modified mortgage effective with the installment due September 1, 2008.

Any questions regarding this Mortgagee Letter or requirements for use of the partial claim and loan modification authorities may be directed to HUD’s National Servicing Center (NSC) at 888-297-8685 or hsg-lossmit@hud.gov.

Sincerely,

Brian D. Montgomery
Assistant Secretary for Housing -
Federal Housing Commissioner

A typical debit card is issued by retailers, other vendors, or more often, banks. These little plastic cards enable you to use your account almost as if the bank was ‘loaning’ you money – it just comes out of your bank account. It allows you to pull cash out of your account from anywhere you can swipe a card, and you can also check the balance remaining in your account. Every time you spend money, either by withdrawing or by buying something, the money is taken from an account at the bank, or a prepaid amount on the debit card.

With prepaid debit cards, you are buying a debit card with a set amount. Prepaid debit cards have a line of credit that is the same as the mass amount on deposit with the company on the card, making it a “pre-funded” instead of borrowed way to spend. For example, if you spend $20 on a prepaid debit card, you will have $20 on that card (unless the institution you purchased it from charges a fee). Instead of money being taken out of an account somewhere in a bank, every time you make a purchase or take money “out”, it will be taken directly from the balance on the prepaid card. There is a data strip on the back of the card that reads information to the computer, when swiped through the machine, and it shows how much you have left on your prepaid debit card. You can “reload” your card, (that is, put more money on it to spend) at the same place you bought it, some retailers, a few check cashing places, and certain kinds of kiosks.

Debit cards and prepaid debit cards are different from the cards that banks give just for withdrawing your money out of an ATM (automatic teller machine). Debit cards and prepaid debit cards don’t require a PIN (personal identification number) to use the funding on the balance, or in the account, unless the user is trying to withdraw money from an ATM. Another very good reason people like debit cards or prepaid debit cards is that they don’t require or run a credit check on the applicant – so even those with destroyed credit can normally get one. This way, they have a way to easily access their money without extremely high interest rates.

Debit cards and prepaid debit cards have the “Visa” or “Mastercard” logos on them to ensure they can work in almost every way a normal credit card can be used. Visa and Mastercard began placing their logos on these types of cards in the late 1980s.

Perhaps the greatest thing about these cards is that they help you control your spending. You absolutely cannot overspend; therefore you can’t go into debt, and you can’t bring fees and charges down on you to cost an arm and a leg. How’s that for smart?

Here are the quotes:

Obama said today that the U.S. is suffering from a “massive hangover” from years of risk-taking and that some banks remain “very vulnerable.” In an interview on NBC’s Today show, he said it’s likely some banks haven’t fully disclosed their losses.

“They’re going to have to write down those losses, and some banks won’t make it,” he said. Referring to the administration’s plan for the financial industry, he said “I do have confidence we’re going to get it right but it’s not going to be overnight.”

Here’s how Bloomberg reported the story:

In the recent mortgage and housing boom, significant percentages of home loans were originated by independent brokers. As salespeople their interests didn’t always align with the interest of the lender or the borrower. In many cases the drive to “get the loan done”, and the multithousand dollar commissions for doing so influenced brokers and their clients to stretch the truth to qualify. Lenders were just as anxious to create loans they could package and sell. Since the loan was being sold off to an invisible investor, the risk would soon leave the lenders books. Overall it created a tremendous incentive to cheat in ways large and small to get the loans written and placed.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to underwrite for fraud. The rating agencies judging the quality of the bonds based on these mortgages could easily understand the likelihood of default in a standard marketplace, they didn’t account for the weakness and deceptiveness of the underlying data. Unfortunately there has been no easy way to easily identify trends of loan failures and tie them back to individual participants in the system. Next year that will change. Starting in January 2010 the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise is requiring a system where every participant in the loan origination process will be assigned an id number, and those numbers will be attached to the loan. Once in place the system will allow regulators to look at the aggregate loan performance of any appraiser, broker, banker and identify those whose loans are statistically bad, fraudulent or under-performing.

When combined with more stringent standards for borrowers to prove their actual incomes, the new standards should grind much of the fraud out of the origination process. So if you are gonna cheat, get it over with now.

Pricing softness differs from region to region with the Western District weakest and the MountainWest region strongest. Read the report here.

Overall, while the market is weak and prices soft, it is important to realize that housing has not become worthless, its just returned to the value it held in 2005. So don’t panic. Back then those prices seemed amazingly high, and historically they still are.

Here are some examples of how costs might differ if you refinanced your home mortgage loan.

Case 1: California

600,000 home, purchased in 2004, with a 450,000 mortgage at 5.625
Currently paying: $2,590.45/month.
Principal: $599.34
Interest: $1,991.11
Current Loan Balance: $424,171.84

What’s left: 424,000 plus 383,000 in interest over 26 years.

If you Refinance for 30 years at 5.30, here’s what you would face:
Monthly Payment: $2,354.49
Monthly Principal: $481.82
Monthly Interest: $1,872.67
What’s left: 424,000 plus 424,000 in interest over 30 years.

You get to drop your monthly payments, but because the loan is stretching out over an extra four years, you end up paying an extra 41000 in interest over the life of the loan. Plus you have any additional closing costs and refinancing costs to put the new loan in place.

If you instead continued to make your payments at 2590 per month, at the new interest rates, you would pay of the loan in 292 months, about 24 years and spend a total of 424000 plus 331,000 in interest. a net savings of over 50,000 from the original loan and almost 100000 over the new loan.

Here’s a page with some mortgage calculators from Homecomings.Com. As part of GMAC they just got bailed out and have plenty of money to spend.

If you find yourself five years into a thirty year mortgage and lenders start dangling lower interest rates, is it worth it to bite? Well it depends on your circumstance, but sometimes it isn’t. Many mortgages are front loaded on interest payment. It is only when you are five or six years into the loan that you start to see significant principal paydown. It is often possible to put yourself in a worse position to swap to a nominally lower interest loan if you are going to face higher fees and costs up front and put yourself back into a position of paying mostly interest in the first few years of the new note.

Here’s a timely article from the New York Times on the subject:

Because the typical mortgage only lasts for about five or six years before the homeowner sells the home or refinances the loan, lenders collect much of the mortgage interest during those years. Once a loan gets beyond five or six years old, homeowners can start seeing the overall debt drop at a faster pace.

So if a homeowner has reached that point, does it make sense to start a new 30-year loan, and face another five years where you’ll make heavier interest payments? The answer, as is so often the case with financial decisions, depends on individual circumstances. If retirement or tuition payment plans involve the liquidation of a home, it may make sense not to take out a new loan.

But in other cases, the monthly savings from a cheaper mortgage could be critical — “especially in this economy,” said Richard E. Austin, a financial adviser with Lincoln Financial Advisors.

Mr. Austin, who is based in Rye Brook, N.Y., noted that someone who five years ago borrowed $220,000 on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage at 5.5 percent would have reduced the loan principal to only $203,500, despite having made nearly $75,000 in payments during that time. From this point forward, the principal would shrink more quickly, but if the borrower could reduce the interest rate to, say, 5 percent, the monthly mortgage payment would drop by $157, to $1,092. Assuming it costs $3,000 to close that new loan, it would take just 27 months to recoup the costs if the borrower is in the 28 percent tax bracket.

If a homeowner planned on keeping the new loan for 27 months or longer, a refinance could well make sense, Mr. Austin and other mortgage advisers said. The federal government has floated the idea of engineering a 4.5 percent mortgage rate, by promising to buy mortgages at those rates, but that proposal was only targeted at loans made for a home purchase, not a refinance. Mortgage rates in late December were at their lowest level since at least 1971, when Freddie Mac began tracking these loans.

Closing costs vary widely in the New York area. Borrowers in Manhattan, for instance, face much higher mortgage taxes than those in the suburbs, so the financial calculus of a refinance decision shifts accordingly.

Mr. Austin, who is also a tax lawyer, said another frequently overlooked factor could help reduce the cost of a refinancing. If the new bank agreed to essentially absorb the old loan — albeit with new terms — the homeowner might not face a mortgage origination tax on the new loan. So when shopping for the new loan, he said, borrowers should ask if the lender will perform a “consolidation and assignment” with the old loan. Be sure to ask, or the lender may not offer it.

For those averse to the idea of starting the 30-year clock anew, Mr. Austin suggests splitting the monthly payment — making half at the middle of the month and saving the other half for the actual due date. That strategy, he said, can take years off the new loan’s payoff term.

Another cost savings strategy is to negotiate a new lower mortgage, but continue to pay the old rate. If you have 2500 monthly payment with 300 dollars going to principal, and reduce your required payment to 2200 but continued to pay 2500 you would in effect double the amount of principal you are repaying and could take many years off of the length of the mortgage.

“It is imperative that Americans are better educated about their finances and understand what it takes to be a responsible homeowner,” said HUD Secretary Steve Preston. “The resources on the website allow families to plan ahead to make smart choices about their finances and homebuying decisions.”

The new site provides a wide-range of information about all avenues needed to be successful on the road to greater financial education, including:

* Building a Financial Foundation;
* Sustaining Healthy Homeownership; and
* Achieving Financial Security.

One of the most unique features of this website is the Self-Assessment Tool. The Self-Assessment Tool provides an extensive guide to help users learn more about personalized options for purchasing and/or refinancing their home. Users will be prompted to answer a few questions. Based on the answers given, the Self-Assessment Tool lists numerous links to visit on-line to learn more about the necessary and correct steps to own a home, refinance a home, enhance their financial skills, and much more.

Some of the other links on My Money, My Home, My Future give detailed information about:

* 9 Steps to Buying a Home
* Housing Counselors and Lenders
* Banking, Credit and Building Wealth
* Foreclosure Process and Alternatives
* Refinancing Loans and FHA Insured Loans